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Topic: Restless Sleep (Read 205 times)

"Now I can't get to sleep. It's his nature to talk so I really can't blame Mel for asking questions about magic. After all, to question is the heart of intellect." T'Riad thinks.

The continuous sound of the waves offered no reprieve from his alertness. T'Riad then gets up quietly and grabs a nearby longsword and heads out into the night.

The moon was shining in silver majesty giving the jungle hills an odd contour. The patches of darkness amongst the trees lent a certain mystery to what waited beyond. He thought about his beloved monastary thousands of miles away. He thought of his brothers and sisters that he had known throughout his life. They were of different races but were as close as any kin he might have had.

T'Riad started to also question things. However his line of questioning was far different from Mel's. "What does it mean, if anything, to be an elf?" He began to swing the long sword with a degree of skill. The weapon was familiar to him. His master was an elf and taught him to wield it with precision. "My family is those that I grew up with but some are very different from my make. I'm an elf but in body only...in spirit I am a brother of the eight. Does that make me less of an elf by given standards? What makes an elf, or any race for that matter, what they are?"

T'Riad continued to spin the sword around and started to combine it with his routine katas. "If I were a dwarf would I still have the same passions? If I were a half orc would my thoughts be as they are now? If my parents had lived would I even be here?" T'Riad thought.

In his routine, T'Riad spun to face the inner harbor. It's not often that his concentration is interrupted but this time it was. He looked out to the expanse of the calm waters and for the first time noticed the size of the fleet of ships that contributed to this expedition. The boats undulated in the sedate waters. The moon was illuminating the boats and danced off of the sea. He then though to himself, "What I could have been matters not. What matters is who I am...that I am here now. We're all here for a reason as there are no accidents. Such is the way of nature, such is the way of balance."

T'Riad continued his discipline with the longsword and seemed to dance in the moonlight. After he had worked himself into exhaustion he went back to the tent and silently crept in and laid down on his cot and listened to the lullaby of the waves. He quickly drifted into his nightly slumber having satisfied his questions for now.